Untitled 1999

This untitled artwork by Doug Ohlson is all about the push and pull of colors, arranged as soft, blurry rectangles. It's as if he was trying to capture a feeling, a vibe, rather than anything concrete. Looking at the way the colors bleed into each other, I can imagine Ohlson, brush in hand, layering and experimenting, maybe even making mistakes and then incorporating them into the final piece. Like, that orange melting into the yellow is beautiful. The surface looks pretty smooth and thin, which gives it a delicate, almost watercolor-like quality. And then you have those bands of color breaking up the blocks. I can sense a real dialogue with other color field painters here, like Rothko or maybe even Agnes Martin, but with its own distinct voice. Artists are always responding to and riffing off each other, like a never-ending conversation across time. It’s a great reminder that painting is an ongoing, ever-evolving experiment!